At the moment, if you want an e-reader device then chances are it will carry an E-Ink display. E-Ink has done so well, and made its way into the market leading Amazon Kindle, because it offers crisp, paper-like viewing in most lighting conditions while using very little power.

That doesn’t mean to say E-Ink displays are free of problems, though, and while they are great for just displaying text and images, they can’t do color, aren’t flexible, and the refresh rate of the screen is so low animation is not an option (although that could change soon).

Competitors are attempting to develop alternatives that make their displays more attractive based on those shortcomings, and one showing some major progress recently is Bridgestone. Its AeroBee e-reader uses the company’s QR-LPD display running at a resolution of 800 x 600. It can do color, allows for drawing directly on the screen with a stylus, and is flexible.

Bridgestone has managed to achieve this by using a completely different approach to creating the display than E-Ink’s technology. AeroBee uses black and white electrified powder that moves through air using transparent electrodes and acts a lot like a liquid. When a voltage is applied to the electrodes the black powder particles move either to the front or back of the display giving a black or white area on the screen. This is also what allows for stylus input as the powder can be moved to track the input as it happens over specific points.

Bridgestone has achieved this while retaining an ultra-low power solution. As a bonus, 4,096 colors can be displayed by adding color filters and the screen technology allows the display to remain flexible. The size of the e-reader can also be both large and small, with the video above showing screens as big as 13.1-inches.

The hardware powering AeroBee includes a 533MHz ARM11 processor running Linux 2.6.24. There’s 128MB RAM, 4GB internal storage, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, USB 2.0, and a memory card slot. Weight wise, it will vary on the screen size, but the 13mm thick 13.1-inch model is 730 grams. The display also has an anti-glare film, although from watching the video the AeroBee still looks like it could suffer from some glare issues.

As for when we will see AeroBee offered as a consumer product, we may have a long wait ahead. Bridgestone looks to be targeting business users first so no timeline or pricing has yet been revealed.